Our Approach
Cognitive Experience Design
The application of cognitive and behavioral science to the design of experiences that intuitively fit and positively influence how people think, feel and behave.
A different question
Most experience improvement efforts begin with the same question: How do we make this better? Better is a reasonable goal. But better is rarely distinctive enough to meaningfully change what people do.
Cognitive Experience Design begins with a different question: What experience would change behavior in ways that create real value—for customers, employees, and the organization?
That reframe—from improving experiences to designing experiences that change behavior—is the foundation of everything we do.
The cognitive foundation
At the heart of Cognitive Experience Design is a rigorous process for reverse engineering the mental model of the customer.
Mental models are the internal representations people use to perceive situations, form preferences, make choices, and guide behavior. They are shaped by prior experience, cognitive shortcuts, emotional associations, and social context—and they are largely invisible to the people who hold them.
Understanding those mental models makes it possible to design experiences that intuitively fit how people think—and that intentionally influence what they do.
Design for how people actually think. Not how we assume they do.
Core principles
Four principles that guide every engagement
Outside in, not inside out
Most organizations design experiences from the inside out—starting with their processes, technology, and org structure. Cognitive Experience Design inverts that logic. We start with a deep understanding of the customer's mental model and work backward to the organization.
Behavior, not satisfaction
Satisfaction scores measure how people feel about an experience. Behavior measures what they do because of it. Cognitive Experience Design targets the behavioral outcomes—adoption, engagement, loyalty, advocacy—that drive economic performance.
Distinctive, not incremental
Incremental improvements produce better sameness. Cognitive Experience Design pursues distinctiveness—experiences so different in how they fit and influence people that they change the competitive landscape.
Transformation, not decoration
A better experience requires a different organization. Cognitive Experience Design works backward from the intended experience to redesign the processes, technology, roles, and management systems required to deliver it consistently and at scale.
How it works
Traditional experience design often starts by identifying problems, pain points and opportunities to improve an existing experience.
Cognitive Experience Design starts with the outcomes the experience needs to produce.
It works backward from desired organizational outcomes to the behaviors required to produce those outcomes—and then to the experiences needed to influence those behaviors.
This creates a direct line of sight from experience design to organizational performance.
Start with Desired Outcomes
Experience is not the ultimate outcome. What people do as a result of an experience is what creates value. Cognitive Experience Design begins by developing an Outcomes Model that connects three levels of desired outcomes: Organizational Outcomes (growth, adoption, retention, stronger economics), Behavioral Outcomes (the specific behaviors that most influence those results), and Experiential Outcomes (the perceptions, beliefs and emotions the experience needs to create). The design process works backward from organizational to behavioral to experiential outcomes—while the causal pathway runs forward: Experience → Behavior → Organizational Outcomes. This provides an economic and strategic foundation for experience design before the design process begins.
Reverse Engineer the Mental Model
People don't respond directly to products, services or environments. They respond to what those experiences mean to them. They interpret situations through mental models shaped by their goals, expectations, beliefs, prior experiences, memories, emotions and perceptions of cause and effect. Cognitive Experience Design uses a rigorous set of elicitation methods to reverse engineer those mental models—understanding what people are really trying to accomplish, how they form preferences, what drives their choices, and what creates confidence, uncertainty, frustration or trust. The objective is not simply to ask people what they want. It is to develop a deeper understanding of why they think, feel and behave as they do.
Design for Behavior
The Outcomes Model defines the behaviors that matter. Understanding the mental model reveals what currently drives those behaviors. The question then becomes: what would need to change about the experience to produce the desired behavioral outcomes? This is Design for Behavior—intentionally designing the cues, interactions, information, choices, feedback and signature moments that influence how people perceive the experience and what they subsequently do. Sustainable behavioral change comes from creating experiences that make it easier and more compelling for people to act in ways that advance what matters to them.
Develop Signature Experiences
Not every element of an experience deserves equal investment. Many improvements simply bring an organization closer to competitive parity—they create better sameness. A signature experience concentrates investment on the relatively small number of elements capable of creating meaningful differentiation and producing the experiential and behavioral outcomes that matter most. The objective is not to make every touchpoint extraordinary. It is to make the right moments meaningfully different.
Transform the Delivery Model
A compelling experience concept has little value if an organization cannot consistently deliver it. Experience-led transformation works backward from the intended experience and behavioral outcomes: What processes must change? What technology is required? What roles and capabilities are needed? What organizational behavior must employee experiences enable? What management systems, measures and incentives must reinforce the right behaviors? Instead of allowing today's organization to determine tomorrow's customer experience, the desired experience becomes a blueprint for transforming the organization.
Measure What Matters
The Outcomes Model also provides the foundation for measurement. Rather than relying primarily on satisfaction scores, measurement follows the same causal pathway used to design the experience: Did the experience produce the desired experiential outcomes? Did those changes in how people think and feel produce the desired behavioral outcomes? Did those behavioral changes produce the desired organizational outcomes? This closes the loop between experience design and organizational performance—Experiential Outcomes → Behavioral Outcomes → Organizational Outcomes.
What it produces
Organizations that apply Cognitive Experience Design don't just improve their experiences. They change the behaviors that drive their business—and build the organizational capabilities to sustain those changes over time.
Ready to design experiences that change behavior?
We work with a select group of organizations each year. Let's explore whether there's a fit.